Visit From Grandma Ray & Great-Grandma Brown

We are so blessed with all the awesome family who have come to help us during this time! Jared's Mom & Grandma Brown were able to come and were tons of help, and Timothy had some more special visitors in the NICU! These pictures are from October 8 -- with his Grandma Ray & Great-Grandma Brown.

Our Sweet Boy

So here’s a little explanation of what’s been going on with our poor little Timothy – what an experience… Congenital Chylothorax basically means he has a leaky vessel that is leaking fluid into his chest cavity, which when it builds up, makes it hard for his lung to inflate, making it hard for him to breathe. He has had to have a chest tube in his side to drain the fluid, which was awful, and they’ve also had to tap him several times with a needle to drain it as well. He has definitely had a rough first month of life. And now the poor guy isn’t allowed to eat, as we are waiting and hoping for this leak to heal so he won’t have to have surgery. (He is getting all his nutrition through IV right now). But his tummy still feels empty all the time, so it’s pretty rough on the poor little guy not to get to eat right now… They’re telling us Thanksgiving is probably too early to hope for to have him home by – that Christmas is a more reasonable goal… And it’s sad for the kids who are so excited to see their new little brother and can’t because of flu season – no children are allowed in the NICU right now… Definitely not something you ever expect to happen, of course, and always takes a lot of adjusting, but we are just so thankful for this new and special little spirit in our family who we are all completely in love with, and that he will hopefully be completely fine and normal when all this is done, at least. And what an angel he is – every nurse that has him in that NICU falls in love with him – he has such a sweet disposition. And he’s so alert and already smiling at us at such a young age and even despite all their putting him through down there. We are so thankful for our new little sweetheart, and look SO forward to the day he gets to come home with us!!


October 3 -- Timothy's Smile (3 weeks old)

October 2

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October 3

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October 5

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Timothy's Wagon Ride

October 8

Life at Home

Little update on our other little munchkins, who thanks to awesome family are hopefully not being too neglected these days! Brielle is still loving Kindergarten every day and doing awesome! As always, way too smart for her own good – her teachers tell me she needs to be in 2nd grade! :) But she still loves it, and I’m so proud of the sweet and happy girl she is at school. This is a picture of her in her school t-shirt for spirit day. Samuel is our amazing puzzle-doer these days! He has such a problem-solving mind… We can’t believe the big puzzles he can already put together all by himself – he’ll sit there forever working on a puzzle until he can figure it out! He’s such an organized problem-solver – the questions he asks us these days out of nowhere are hilarious – that mind is always thinking and just trying to figure everything out – we can’t believe all the questions he is always coming up with for us… Heaven help us when he gets older and we don’t know the answers anymore! And our little miss priss, Colette, as always – I took this picture of her in front of her closet because it is her favorite place to raid and find new clothes, shoes, and especially dresses! She is very opinionated about the outfits she wears now – very hard to persuade to wear anything other than a dress – she loves to figure out what matches, and pick what she wants to wear every day… And as is obvious from the picture – she loves to pose! (My dream come true!) :)

How thankful we were for my mom staying with us for 3 weeks to help out right now – making this a fun experience for the kids rather than a sad one! And awesome Aunt Athena came to help us for 5 days as well – such lifesavers!! We were so thankful for their help!

The Rest of September with Timothy

September 29, 2009

Timothy Bruce Ray - 17 Days Old

(Still not a lot of time for explanations, so I'm just posting all the pictures again for now....)

Sep. 21 - Timothy's first time eating!, Grandma's first time holding him, Moving up to a big boy's crib...

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Sep. 23 - My first time giving Timothy a bath...
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Sep. 26 - Timothy 2 weeks old

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Sep. 29 - Timothy is so alert and loves to be talked and sung to while we hold him - staring at us with those huge eyes of his - such a sweetie! (He's quite the smiler too!)

Sep. 30 - Timothy 18 Days Old

(Just realized we need more pictures with Daddy... We'll work on that!)